life on Mars? Great Salt Lake may hold some clues August 14, 2025 Above: Great Salt Lake Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a place of extremes, and its ecosystem is evidence that life can thrive under some of Earth’s most hostile conditions. Scientist say it may hold clues for life on other planets, too, especially […]
Read MoreA physicist tackles machine learning black box August 13, 2025 From self-driving cars to facial recognition, modern life is growing more dependent on machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that learns from datasets without explicit programming. Despite its omnipresence in society, we’re just beginning to understand the mechanisms driving the technology. In a […]
Read MoreAnna LIttle: Above the Noise August 13, 2025 Above: Anna Little, awardee of the NSF Career Grant In the constant chaotic communication of the modern day it is vitally important to find promising individuals and raise them above the noise. That is the role of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER program: to find talented researchers […]
Read MoreWildfire smoke exacerbates ozone pollution August 13, 2025 Above: The 2020 Loyalton Fire wildfire in Lassen, Plumas and Sierra counties in California and Washoe County in Nevada. Wildfires release vast amounts of visible pollutants into the atmosphere that darken skies and push people indoors to avoid unhealthy air. But a near-invisible threat to public health associated with wildfires is ozone, the reactive oxygen molecule O3 that harms the lungs […]
Read More‘The elephant in the room’ for sciComm August 5, 2025 Above: Assuming the position for your daily dose of science communication Scientists are crucial voices in the public debate about wicked problems — societal-scale, high-stakes issues with no clear solutions, like pandemics and artificial intelligence. In the past, experts reached the masses through journalists at […]
Read Moresecret weapon in the race to mine more minerals August 5, 2025 Above: Earth AI uses software and proprietary drilling hardware to find, verify, and sell multi-billion-dollar mineral projects. Credit: Earth AI; Alyssa Powell/BI The US is scrambling to reduce its reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals. The raw materials are essential inputs for […]
Read MoreThe Violent Events of Deep Space August 4, 2025 Above: John Matthews explains how a multiple telescope arrays are placed in hopes of capturing cosmic rays as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: Mike Anderson, KSL TV Scientists at the University of Utah, along with others around the world, are taking a close look at deep […]
Read MoreField Notes: From the Classroom to the Wetlands of Eastern Turkey August 19, 2025 Above: “Rufous-tailed Scrub Robbins in-hand: These Scrub Robbins were caught in the same round. Alva found one and Maria found one. Since they are good friends, they were excited to show each other their cool finds. They were surprised to find […]
Read MoreFixing Nature-based Climate Solutions July 30, 2025 Carbon ‘off-sets’ are not working. U-led research results in roadmap for harnessing Earth’s natural processes to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide A lot of the climate-altering carbon pollution we humans release into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels gets drawn into Earth’s oceans and landscapes through natural processes, mostly […]
Read MorePhysics Pioneer Pierre Sokolsky awarded the 2025 Yodh Prize July 23, 2025 Above: Pierre Sokolsky To many, the (literally) rarefied air of the field of ultra high energy cosmic ray physics can prove elusive. And yet, these particles from outer space that travel across the universe at nearly the speed of light are in fact […]
Read More